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It started with money, and it has ended with money. The "Big Three" financial model drawn up by the boards of India, England and Australia unveiled amid much consternation three years ago is no more, replaced by a plan to vastly reduce the BCCI's share of ICC revenue and offer identical amounts to seven of the game's Full Member nations. After a week of intense negotiations that saw the BCCI's opposition to change outmaneuvered by the collective will of the rest, the amount of ICC revenue to be handed out to each nation is now as follows. The BCCI will receive US$293m across the eight-year cycle, the ECB US$143m, Zimbabwe Cricket US$94m and the remaining seven Full Members US$132m each. Associate Members will receive total funding of US$280m. While this distribution is not a complete rollback to the equal funding from ICC events that Full Members used to receive, it is a considerable distance from the US$440 million the BCCI stood to earn under the Big Thr

Before the IPL kickstarts its tenth edition teams losing players to injuries has become the trend. With less than four days to go for the tournament to begin, some of the biggest names of world cricket have already pulled out. Royal Challengers Bangalore are seemingly the worst-hit. Their skipper Virat Kohli is already nursing a shoulder injury and will be out for a couple of weeks. Again, yesterday it was confirmed that their other star batsman KL Rahul, too will miss the season as undergoes a surgery. Rahul was injured during the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy and as per reports he will soon be travelling to London to undergo surgery. Rahul had earlier given hints about his injury and how the injury was stopping him from playing extravagant strokes. After skipper Virat Kohli, KL Rahul is the second Indian batsman from RCB who has got injured. In Kohli’s absence AB de Villiers was supposed to lead the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) side. However, that seems to be

India’s PV Sindhu entered the India Open final after holding off South Korea’s Sung Ji-hyun to win 21-18, 14-21, 21-14 in New Delhi on Saturday. With the win, Sindhu set up a summit clash with Olympic gold-medallist, Spain’s Carolina Marin. The first game was a closely contested one but the Sindhu did a fine job to hold on to her lead. Sindhu’s ferocious jump-smashes fetched her a series of points as she pocketed the opening game. The 22-year-old made a fine start to the second game too, and led 5-3. Her opponent, however, staged a terrific comeback, picking up six points in a stretch to take the lead in the game. Despite Sindhu battling hard, the Korean won the second game with relative ease. Sindhu raced to a 4-0 lead in the deciding game and never allowed her opponent a way back in the contest. Sung Ji-hyun yet again made a spirited comeback but Sindhu breezed to a win.